News from the little world

 

I thought it's been a while since I made a news tour of the world's smallest nations.  So why not today?

VATICAN CITY: The lead story is actually a good point, on how crime prevention needs to focus not just on punishment, but changing the conditions.  And while the spokesman correctly said, "crime draws its vitality from economic and social inequalities, as well as from corruption, claiming victims especially among those in vulnerable situations," I'm rather surprised that the seat of the largest Christian church said nothing about the fallen nature of man and the saving of souls.

MONACO: Monaco sits right next to a French province that just went back into COVID lockdown, but is only going as far as a curfew.  But as for their large neighbor, "During a conference in which the Minister of State, Pierre Dartout, asked France to stop spreading fake news, he also reassured the Monégasque public there would be no additional safety measures enforced.".  Fake news:  Not just for breakfast anymore.

NAURU: So the latest tempest in Oceania involves the University of the South Pacific, which is owned and spans several of the flyspeck island nations and dependencies in the area.  Apparently, the Vice Chancellor of the U, Pal Ahluwalia, leaked a report he wrote about financial mismanagement at the Fiji-based school, and in February the Fijian government crammed him and his wife on a plane to Australia and said don't come back.  Where Nauru comes in is that its President,  Lionel Aingimea, is also Chancellor of the school, and had to be told about it the next day.  He has offered to put the couple up in his country, and Samoa has offered to let the U relocate there, so this seems to be turning into a whole thing between Fiji and the rest of the Flyspeck Island family.

TUVALU: This is another member of the flyspeck guild, and outside of expired websites and glorified tourism pages, the only news is from a Facebook page, and the last thing from it was a February 10th economic meeting with New Zealand who was trying to get it to join the Flyspeck Guild's version of NAFTA, called PACER PLUS.  To these non-econ, non-diplomatic eyes, this seems like an attempt by Australia and New Zealand to herd the flyspecks together and deal with them all in one shot, which hasn't worked out mainly because the biggest flyspecks, Papua-New Guinea and (you guessed it) Fiji have refused to join.

SAN MARINO: This enclave in Italy's big news was that at the end of February, kindergarten through 2nd graders got to go back to school, if in a hybrid form.  Breaking news:  The students were happy to be back, and reported that their favorite thing in school was still recess.

LIECHTENSTEIN: A visit to Liechtenstein is always like a visit to a bank that's too rich for you.  This little valley tucked in between Switzerland and Austria is a country of rich people ruled by a rich family, and any effort of the Parliament to limit the power of that family in the years since WWII have been voted down overwhelmingly.  So not surprisingly, their lead news story was about the amazing profits made by some company on their annual report.

MARSHALL ISLANDS: Outside of a conference promoting women to take the lead in tourism development, the Marshall Islands news would like you to know you can join its 543 subscribers for a mere $52 American!

ST KITTS and NEVIS: This member of the Flyspeck Guild, Caribbean division, is running a contest on the island of Nevis for a social media jingle to promote vaccinations for COVID.  Sorry, you have to be a resident.

MALDIVES: Our last contestant, from Flyspeck Guild- Indian Ocean, gives perspective on "front line workers": They have announced some 8,800 front line workers of the tourism industry have received their vaccinations.  We get ours April 10th, just sayin'...